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Desert Stars: Leadership Development Program

Desert Stars: Leadership Development Program

The program is for Bedouin young people ages 17 to 23. The first stage is a thorough evaluation, selection and preparation during the 11th & 12th grades of high school. Desert Stars makes every possible effort to reach students from as many towns, villages and tribes as possible in order to identify individuals with high leadership potential and form them into a united group. Assessments are done in partnership with local schools, youth centers, community organizers and youth councilors. In a series of intensive multi-day workshops throughout the school year, candidates undergo simulations, outdoor activities and leadership exercises.

Programs include outdoor activities such as 24-hour hikes in the desert, desert survival skills, preparing food, intensive team work, encounters with leading figures from Bedouin and broader Israeli societies, community work such as performing a complete "face-lift" on a local Bedouin school by setting up a garden and painting the buildings. All the activities at this stage of the program are meant to build trust within the group and to demonstrate to them the impact of a united group and how fast they can move on as individuals if they choose to do so.

This is the beginning of the process for this group to build trust, learn to act as a united group and gain exposure to new ways of thinking.

Despite the distance and their intense school activities, forming a united group of the chosen boys is very important. It’s important to say that this year, 131 boys from 33 different schools (out of a total of 35 schools) enrolled into our assessment seminar.

The next and most intense stage of the program, following high school graduation, is an 11-month leadership development program (incubator) in boarding conditions at the Nitzana-Jewish Agency Educational community in the southwestern Negev.

The heart of the program is this the 11-month residential program, which includes lectures, outdoor training, workshops, and excursions and engaging with the Bedouin communities on various levels. Each participant will be assisted in building a personal development plan to pave his leadership path.

Desert Stars was established to nurture a new leadership generation within the Bedouin society, a generation of leaders who take responsibility for the creation of a better, more just and more equal society, which facilitate a productive coexistence in the Negev. Desert Stars' goal is to identify and promote young Bedouins with potential leadership qualities and an interest in social engagement, who wish to develop their life skills and leadership abilities, so they will lay the foundations ...